a little moment of hedge-filled zen

Not much time to post this last week. we are 'borrowing' wireless from a lovely unknown neighbor who has their network open. bless you bless you dlink person! So a quick post from me, with a picture from the garden at the Olympics in Beijing. Tea + Shrubbery + Fabulous =



How do they get it to steam??

In-transit: Books Read in Limbo

I'm still working through Moby Dick, about which I can currently say the following:

• It turns out that this Melville guy writes extremely well. Fascinating.
  
• Moby Dick is a laugh riot. Seriously. LOL.

More on Ishmael later.

But as I work through the dense and rewarding Moby Dick (I must be weird because I really like the chapters where he narrates encyclopedia entries--oo! Cuvier! Love it!) I am reading other things along the way. Plane flights and the seven-hour-long wait for the movers (no joke) helped in this. (I would be blogging about that but I'm not yet in a place to do so. Grr.)

Submarine by Joe Dunthorne
I would not have found this book were it not for my friendship in Swansea with the author's parents, and I'm glad that they told me about it because it's a wonderful read, tightly written, and perfectly captures what living in Swansea near the Gower feels like. The protagonist is a mid-teen boy who psychoanalyses his parents and is worried they are headed for divorce (he attempts to take action to avert this in his own hilarious and awkward way). Meanwhile his own life is taking new directions, as it does in the mid-teen years. To call it a coming of age novel would be to over-genrefy it (not a word) and therefore to miss the subtlety, cynicism, and wit that Dunthorne puts into the character and his parents. Featuring Rhossili and Llangennith, as well as Walter Road and other locales, so for Swanseaites, or those who for some reason (!) visited Swansea and also read this blog (why would that be?) a good read. [side note: Joe's mother was careful to point out that the novel is not (NOT!) autobiographical.]

A Dog Year by Jon Katz
Our old friends from F'burg, now living in DC (well, MD, but close enough), with whom we would trade dog-sitting duties and walks to the dog park, recommended this one, not because it is high literature but because it fundamentally gets the relationship we have with our dog and they had with theirs (Molly, sadly, passed on to glory two years ago). They also gave it to their vet when she failed in every way to get that relationship as they were making the difficult decision to put Molly down. A great plane read. Takes about an hour, and if you love dogs, this is it. Bonus: may explain a lot about the authors of this blog to those who do not get dog people.

Zodiac by Neal Stephenson
We picked this up on our recent trip to bookstoreville (aka PDX), where the used selection and the manageable store size at the Hawthorne Powells can't really be beat. Stephenson writes well--his Snow Crash rocked. This one is less good, but is interesting on a number of levels. Writing is still tight. The main character is a bit of an ass, but not so much that you hate him, so that works. And it's written in a particular moment in the history of the US environmental movement (mid/late 80s) when ecowarrior didn't mean an SUV-driving mountain-climbing organic-food-buying consumer but meant, well, a warrior who fought for enviro causes (I'm not angry, I'm just sayin'). Post-hippie, but still enough of that to give the book flavor. Set in Boston and featuring evil corporations, debates over whether simply exposing them does any good at all, and a thriller-type storyline that's pretty fun to follow. Bonus: protagonist is a chemist! cool! After you've read it we can discuss the rest of my review--no spoilers...

There may be more but I can't remember them at this stage (not a good sign). Three for now is enough. Back to the high seas and the search for the great white one...

Bi-coastal

Culture shock comes in various forms and often in successive waves--you think you're good and then you go somewhere and chat with people and you realise: actually, no. this is in fact a completely alien place to me.

We have returned from a week-ish trip to Portland and I can report that Portland is full of Portland people, which makes it a bit odd. What I mean by this is that Portland is one of the strongholds of lefter-than-thou left-leaning lefty folks, which makes me love visiting there on the one hand. Everyone is granola. Everyone rides their bikes everywhere. Of course you compost. Of course you use the fabulous lightrail and transport infrastructure the city has developed. Wrth gwrs. Natürlich. And, of course you support Obama.

We saw NO McCain signs anywhere in Portland or Vancouver WA during our trip. Perhaps it's because this isn't the route his campaign is going, but it was striking. More striking was the canvassing for money we ran into on the street. And this worries me a bit because news outlets are talking about Obama fatigue, which I didn't quite get having spent the primary season in the UK and now being in DC where while Obama is big, there are many Republicans here (weird, no?). It's a bit more balanced inside the beltway (although still out-of-whack in its own way) than the PDX crowd. Having visiting Portland I totally 'get' Obama fatigue.

The DNC folks on the streets of Portland assumed that *of course* you are an Obama supporter, and what's more, of course you've already given to his campaign. I worry that in talking to themselves so much and patting themselves on the back so much the Democrats in coastal cities like Portland will lay back and think they have it won at worst and at best repeat the cultural and political mistake of dismissing everyone in the 'fly-over' 'red' states in the middle, which are neither fly-over (direct coastal flights are expensive and rare these days) nor truly and fully red. Ignoring or dismissing the middle of the country glibly will not win you any friends and will alienate many many people. Like all those folks in the middle.

I find this insulting and arrogant and elitist, exactly the things that lose Dems the elections. I found myself--someone that finds little space for my semi-socialist leanings in the US political spectrum--I found myself sympathising with the Republicans and wishing I could enter into a debate with these folks in which *I took the conservative side*. Because they were so smug and settled.

Final and important note: another disturbing trend among these canvassers is the DNC-v-Obama rhetoric they are employing. The two fund raising entities are separate. Fine. But the DNC is doing itself no favours by whining that Obama's excellent fundraising machine is leaving them in the cold. Especially since the impression at the upper levels is that Obama is working well with the DNC (e.g. he didn't reconstitute the party leadership when he certainly could have). So I found it very problematic that one of the lines of argument the DNC fundraisers were giving us is a clear distanciation between DNC and Obama, something that I don't think serves either very well.

As a worrier, I worry. And visiting Dem-happy PDX only deepened that worry. Reassurances? Anyone?

Anyone Remember the Cardassian Legal System?

It looks to me like Cardassia was the model here. Thus, to make this work, all that is required is for the Sisko to show up to defend anybody who is innocent. 

Urban Not-so-Hipster on cities...

No. 3 over at FFB points us today to a fascinating article about demographic inversion in US (and to a certain extent global) cities. As a student of the urban in part of my academic life, and a lover of analyses of urban space I recommend reading it--it's very interesting. Some comments to add to those already noted by rhif tri:

Always slightly missing from the discussion about downtown-versus-suburb/exurb/whateverurb is that, er, lots of people live in very small cities, largeish towns, and straight up rural areas. There's a myopia involved in the discussion of where you might want to live in a city, or where people choose to live that assumes to a large extent that we're all talking about the same major cities in the same major Euro-American countries. The article includes Charlotte NC, which is great, but mostly it's about the larger places.

One of the biggest changes for us moving from a series of these smaller towns (Fredericksburg VA, Redlands CA, State College PA, Swansea UK) to the city for the first time since graduate school is transportation. Not the car, mind--you're dependent on that in most cities in the US and our interlude in Swansea was lovely for lack of dependence on a vehicle despite it being a smaller city/bigger town. I'm talking of airports. For all the carbon neutral, rising costs, security line nightmares of today's airline travel, sometimes you still have to do it. And this is the first time since MSP that we've lived within 25 minutes' drive of a major airport.

Fredericksburg: hellish hour and a half drive to DCA on I-95 (about the same by train/metro but then you add in the lead times for getting there based on the infrequent transit schedule), 2-3 hours hard driving to IAD, hour and a half easyish drive to RIC.

Redlands: 45 minutes to ONT, if you timed it right. 2ish hours to LAX.

State College: 15 minutes to SCE! Where you then have the privilege (for crazy amounts of money) of flying a bus-sized propeller plane to IAD's Terminal G (if you've been there you know what I'm talking about) or Cincinnati. Enjoy. 3 hours to BWI, PIT, or PHL.

Swansea: 1+ hours' drive to CWL, near impossible to reach by public transport. 2ish hours to BRS (2.5 by public transport, which involved 2 trains and a bus). 3.5 hours to LHR, 4ish hours by train, or 5 hours by bus. Don't even talk about LGW.

So the quick drive or relatively easy public transport trek to BWI is looking great to us. And when I booked a ticket this week to visit PDX from DCA at the last minute, I was astonished at how little work I had to do. I found the ticket, booked it, then found a place to board Luke, booked that, and looked around. There must be something else I have to do, right? What am I forgetting? Oh yeah--I don't have to research train times to the airport or book tickets to get there or worry about my flight being 2 hours late and nullifying my train tickets--I just get on the metro and head to DCA. Should take about 25 minutes from my front door. Cool. And then on the other end, the family that's meeting us has about a 15-20 minute drive to PDX. And if they had the money to participate in the inversion and live in Portland, we could take public transport to get to them. The livin' really is easy.

Rendition,....not really a review

We watched Rendition the other night. It was my first HD rental from the iTunes store, and the picture quality was indeed impressive. And Jake Gylenhall is still really hot, even when he's playing a straight guy. That's the extent of my movie review. On to the putative moral message of the movie, concerning torture.

On my reading, the movie was making some sort of impassioned moral plea, attempting to motivate its audience to take up a position of opposition to torture, and particularly to the current US administration's tacit (and sometimes more explicit) sanctioning of interrogation techniques that clearly amount to torture and to the practice of extraordinary rendition. 

OK, that's a bit on the nose (the movie plot, not my summary of it), but fair enough. 

The movie infuriated me, however, because of the lengths it went to to rig the moral game (the game that makes you think torture might be bad). To wit:

The guy being subject to rendition has lived in America for 20+ years, went to NYU, speaks perfect American-accented English, is married to an 8 months pregnant Reese Witherspoon, has the perfect white-person house in the Chicago suburbs, and is just obviously an all-around nice guy. 

I see, so I'm supposed to not want the CIA and its foreign intelligence minions to capture him at O'Hare, put a bag over his head, fly him to Africa, strip him naked, lock him up in a dirty hole, waterboard him, beat him, and subject him to electrical shock?

Wow, however will I be moved to feel that way? 

Please - if we're going to make a movie that opposes torture on moral grounds, is that really the best we can do?

Torture isn't wrong only when it happens to nice (almost) American guys. It's wrong when it happens to human being (and animals too, but I'll leave that aside), any human beings. 

I want to see the movie that seeks to mobilise opposition against torture in which the person being tortured doesn't speak English, doesn't look like an all-American guy, isn't obviously and clearly innocent - and isn't married to an 8 months pregnant Reese Witherspoon. 

The implicit message of Rendition seems to be: let's not condone explicit policies of torture, because we might end up torturing this guy - and that would be bad and probably wouldn't catch us any terrorists. But on the unturned obverse side of that coin we still find the notion that it might be OK to torture a really bad guy, if they had some information that we really needed.

Is there anyone still saying 'no!' to this latent message? Am I in a significant minority of Americans now in thinking that torture (which I would define rather broadly) should be rejected, criticised, and eschewed at all turns and at all costs, not because it's not effective (although that's true) and not because we might do it to a good guy (although that's true too), but because it violently and irrevocably undermines the most sacred principles of democracy?

Spending money (and other tales of moving)

Moving is kind of like Christmas for those who celebrate the holiday. Not in the tree and gifts and Santa kind of way but in the way that it impacts your budget/fiscal planning for the following 2-6 months. Having done this several times in the last few years, and now doing it the second time across the Atlantic, you get used to it. We don't know what our 'normal' monthly budget/outlay will be because that won't really occur until about November, at which point Christmas will kick in, and thus it will be about March April-ish when things should 'normalize'. At which point the likelihood of us moving next summer will be high, for it is summer and based on past history this means we move, so place your bets ladies and gents.

We are now doing the purchases of the ineffables like insurance (car, renters) and the effables like said car, iPhone (obviously), non-i-related phone for me, furniture for F's office (weird) and clothes. For we have no clothes for this weather (hence my rant about pregno-chic earlier). There is another rant about men's shorts that I believe has already been done over at FFB. Future purchases include anything you use on a daily basis that plugs in: espresso maker, iron, blender, food processor, coffee grinder, hair dryer, lamps, TV, subwoofer, other AV type stuff. And there's the endless research on each of these items (have you met us?). And then the services that go with them (sell soul to Comcast? Nooooooooooo!)

We are getting the inevitable breaking in to the capitalist machine that is US living. We will be good cogs soon. I promise.

Things Brits might learn from Americans

The other side of the coin, based on 10ish days in country, observing the natives.

un: have a happy, positive outlook! Why not? Chin up, head high, hair back, embracing the world! No more hunched shoulders apologizing for existing! No more mumbling! Laugh loudly, don't chuckle! Use exclamation points!

ail: chat more. with people on the street, with waitstaff, with your drycleaner. show your interest in other people by connecting with them verbally. Without introduction.
recent example:
In REI, from behind, while I'm trying to find a non-materno-fashion shirt: "Love your bag" [me: beat, hestitate, was she talking to me? oh. um...] Thanks! [proceed to chitchat about backpacks, single v. double shoulder, aging computer bags, and then get recommendation on fab running socks that I must have. I buy them. Because we talked, obviously.]
Note to British people trying this out: you have to practice the chat. It takes some doing to generate streams of verbal exchanges that are *not* about the weather. I find commerce facilitates such practice and chatter. Americans connect via the shopping. It's all very friendly.

tre: two words: iced tea. I know I know--it's too cold in Britain for this sort of thing. And sure, tea in its Platonic form is obviously hot, preferably black with cream/milk, and served whenever anyone arrives at your house. These things are all true. But there's something about iced tea that we can separate from tea-ness and put in a different category of icy goodness on a hot day. Of course, you'll need to wait until there is a hot day, and also work out how to do ice trays in drawer-based freezers, so there are infrastructure issues. But still. Iced tea. Genius.

Good things British Life Taught Me

One: Eat more cream and cream-based products. Low fat is blech. And clotted cream, particularly of the Cornish variety (with the yellow crust on top...) is divine. As is double cream. As is single cream. Any of the creamy goodness varieties really. And yogurt is no good unless there's fat in it. This the British know. They may be the fattest country in Europe, but they are thinner than Americans, and frankly it's not the clotted cream that's getting 'em. It's the McDonalds and the chippies.

Dos: Take holidays. Multiple, often, get-away-from-home type holidays. Maybe even dip your toe in someone else's culture. Mind you, not far enough to be more than about a two minute walk from the nearest Irish/English/Welsh/Scottish pub. But this is easily done in most countries around the world. Sure, the Brits go to somewhat horrid resorts in Spain where you don't really leave the British isles. But they go. And in droves. And regularly. They also invented the 'mini-break' in which you go somewhere for four days. Often last-minute. Americans should do more of this.

Due prime: Work less. On purpose. Fewer hours. Maybe even part time. On purpose. It helps to have your healthcare covered. And more than 2 weeks a year off. But let's just settle for this: take weekends off. By this I mean: don't check the email, hang out with the family, go down the pub with the friends, stay up til 2 am talking, go see a local castle (okay, not as easy in the US, but substitute 'castle' with 'large ball of twine' and you're good to go. My point is: work less.

These are some of the things in the mini capsule of Britishness I'm trying to keep as we move across the Atlantic. We'll see how it goes.

Too much too much

to blog about.

the bullet points that follow do not exist:

arrived US 10 July with dog in tow. note to self: customs office closes at 4:30, and you need to clear your doggie's papers, so if your flight comes in at 2:30 you better hoof it over there. minor sweat broken.

10th July--T-shirt seen in Whole Foods, Logan Circle: America is Scary. agreed.

Noted: shirts available for humans of the female variety in this land emphasise 'pregnant' look. Conclusion: culture values fertility (especially in its 'junior' girls) and can be considered akin to early 15th century Flanders. Van Eyck would be proud.


petrol is very cheap here. and yet petrol stations must still apologize. poor US drivers.

Realization: we are no longer graduate students. this means we must have washer dryer in the apartment. designated, and preferably covered parking. nice hardwood floors. a bathroom that, well, you'd want to use on a daily basis. a kitchen that doesn't make you want to poke your eyes out. small things. little things.

Spotted: best euphamism for carpetbagger. ever.




And, I am a sucker for a good door. This final image also marks our current stress: given that we're not grad students and thus have trouble finding a decent apartment, should we rent or buy?

stuff and things

Our things have been packed, aside from the books in our offices which, of course, comprise the majority of the *weight* of our shipment, if not the volume. We are told we had the highest density shipment the movers had ever seen when we moved from CA to Wales, and we were told that we literally had a ton of books at one point in the past, which, well, isn't surprising. Have you met us?

Somehow it feels better now that things are in boxes--it's not our house anymore without our stuff and things. And again, why do we need all this stuff? Could we live in a world where you just move and get a furnished place? Would that drive us insane? You could look for apartments based on size and approach to decorating. Or you could do the Japanese pod-vision of the world, in which your entire apartment is the size of a shipping container, and so you simply detach it from the building and ship it to the new place you're living. Or we could just promise to decorate one house per lifetime. and then thereafter switch around with folks. Or we could just have less stuff.

We did ponder selling everything and not shipping anything. But then when you move, what makes the new place home is the old stuff in the new place. And nomads move their whole house, right? Sigh. 6-8 weeks without our stuff (again), which we will now be calling a 'freeing' experience. That's it, exactly.

Taking the Long Way 'Round

This is my theme song of late, because I listen to it while rowing. Because it's my state of being. Because it's a great song. and so.

Big news: after almost 5 months on the market, the house has sold! Huzzah! And yay for capitalism, in which we lost the equivalent of my entire year's salary! Huzzah again! But hey, it's only money, right? Yes. Yes. Only money. My pretty.

Big news II: we sold the car on ebay! Huzzah! they are coming by with cash in 10 minutes to pick it up. Sad to see April go. But cash money! Huzzah! We are now carless for a couple of weeks, during which time we will rent/borrow/hijack cars (except the last one, not so much with that).

Both things happened today. I am spinning, unsure whether to be stoked or very very afraid.

T-6 days.

Unnesting: the update

Today we put stuff on ebay. This is something we do every 6 months or so anyway, as we upgrade our ipods/computers/TV/AV systems/phones or generally clear out electronics that will, simply by sitting, become paperweights. But in this case it is part of unnesting, the moving ritual.

I was wondering today what it would be like to live somewhere for more than 5 years. It would be weird. You would get used to the place, pass the boring mark and move into the settled in status, the comfort of the groove, the smoothness of the rut. You'd notice the little new things: oh, that shop closed. oh, they're building a fountain in their garden. oh, that dog must have moved onto a better place. I don't know what this would feel like, really, in your gut. To settle in. To feel like your stuff won't move again, not for awhile. To not weed out the shelves periodically. Would it feel comforting and homey? Or chafing and restricting? Would I start hating the one board that creaks upstairs so much it distracted me? Or would I need to know that it creaks to keep my life within the bounds of normalcy? Is nomadism normal? Or is nesting and settling in? What do those people do? You know, the people who are normal?

So we are selling things on ebay. And choosing what to give away (and whom to give it to). And choosing which clothes we will need for the next 6-10 weeks while our things are in transit (answer: um it's hot in B'more, so as little clothing as possible). And figuring out how to extricate ourselves from one country and reenter the other (getting car insurance without a car? notifying someone about not needing the TV license?)

And we're leaving a bit behind. Not just the house, of course, and not just the hot tub (the hot tub!). But I've decided that we're leaving behind the bird house, the one that my out-laws gave to me for Christmas when we lived in Virginia. Because a bird family moved in. And they might move, or travel for the winter, or have another home somewhere. But then they'll come back, right? And they'll want their copper-roofed house (park adjacent! safe from cats! quiet neighborhood! great schools! organic, free-range worms daily just outside your peephole!). So we're leaving that. And indeed a lot more.

US Open 08

I don't watch much golf on TV. But I don't miss a major. Since 1986 I've watched probably every major except for 2 or 3; since 1997 I've seen them all. And when I say 'seen them all', I mean full coverage of all four days, and in almost all cases this means watching every shot that Tiger hits for those four days. (Living in the US, this means getting up at 4am to watch The Open Championship; living in the UK, it means staying up until 3am to watch everything except The Open.) So I've seen a lot of major championship golf, the type that is set up to generate 'unbelievable' shots and stories.

I've never seen anything like the 91 holes that Tiger played from Thursday to Monday.

I refuse to participate in the 'is golf a sport' discussion, but Tiger Woods is an athlete. I've known for a while that it was only right and proper for him to be compared not only to Nicklaus, but also to Jordan or Gretzsky. After this weekend, it's hard not to be believe that he's the best there is - at least in my lifetime, at least those that I've had the privilege to watch.

I think this is sometimes difficult for non-golfers to grasp fully, because Tiger is now expected to win. But no other golfer in history has been 'expected to win' in this manner. For the greatest golfers of previous decades, winning a few majors total was an unbelievable feat. After Jack, Nick Faldo was the greatest major winner, with 6. He won more majors in the 1990s then anyone, with a total of 4. In comparison, Tiger has won 3 in the past 10 months.

But the point is that up until Tiger, every golfer, even every great golfer, missed a lot of cuts, missed a lot of pressure putts, and hit a lot of bad shots that led them to come in 6th rather than 1st. They were 'great' because of what they did over a few years, over a career. And though Jack was undoubtedly the very best of his generation, he had a whole host of players that were very close to him in talent, ability, and wins (Palmer, Trevino, Player, Miller, Weiskopf, Watson, and Floyd, just to name a few). But Tiger is so far above everyone else, that even after missing the next 10 months he'll probably still be ranked number 1 in the world. Tiger has an ability to play under pressure that has never been seen before. In the last two days of this US Open, he simply did not miss any shortish pressure putts. Roco Mediate, who played a fabulous championship, probably missed 8 of those putts over the last two days.

And Tiger can hit shots that for every single other golfer on the planet prove to be an absolute impossibility. He did this on Sunday at the 15th hole, hitting a shot that was, literally, unhittable - and part of me expected him to do it.

Oh, and by the way, it turns out he did all this on a torn ACL with two stress fractures in his tibia. I have no more words to describe or account for this.

So I'll just say congratulations to Tiger, on winning his 17th Major. Yes, you'll see everyone else describe this as his 14th. But they are wrong. I once wrote an article about this, but I wasn't successful at getting it published (I probably shouldn't have used the word 'hypostatise' in it so much). If you are curious, you can read a draft of it here.

the Starbucks of Yoga

A lot of yoga folks look down on Bikram yoga, the 90-minute program of poses done in a very hot, steamy room. It is the same each time and its namesake and founder has some policies that regiment it even further, which can sometimes be frustrating to yoga studios doing his programme. If one is in a city with a wide range of yoga choices, and one lives there full-time, then Bikram may not be the best choice--there are other hot yogas if you like that, and other ways to do yoga that can be more challenging in some ways, and certainly have more variety if you're into that.

But as someone who has never lived in a place with decent yoga within an hour drive, I will attest that Bikram : Yoga as Starbucks : Coffee. It's not, as some people claim, the 'McDonalds of yoga'. That implies that it is bad-for-you, cheap, and unthinking product delivered as conveniently and quickly as possible. It is instead the Starbucks of yoga. Yes, some people only drink frappucinos, but you can also get good, consistent doppio macchiatos and americanos, and when you're in a strange city, it's good to know that you don't need to try every coffee place in town to find a decent bean.

Bikram has been my salvation when travelling, because I know that in an hour and a half I can get a good all-around workout and I know that the likelihood of anything vaguely hippie/Orientalist/new age is fairly low, aside from the 'namaste' at the end of the workout. I know what I'm getting, and I can do this while carrying almost no gear. My most recent experience was at a great studio in Berlin Mitte, but there have been many others. Herewith the map of Bikrams I have known:


View Larger Map

B2, the 2Bs

So B no. 2 was Bradford, you would think slightly less exotic than Berlin but in fact you'd be wrong. First, it's in northern England and for those of you keeping track, we live in a different country, namely Cymru. Everything is different in Yorkshire except the money and the Starbucks. Second, I stayed in a lovely railway hotel that was reminiscent of many Victorian railway hotels from where I grew up in Colorado, so that was a bit odd. Also odd was the bathtub in the room. and by in the room I mean in the room:

So that was cool. Obviously I had to take a bath.

I was there to visit the collection at the National Media Museum, which was lovely--lovely people, lovely pictures, great facility. In the short two days I was there I decided that I must seek out South Asian food, for Bradford has a proud and competitive group of excellent restaurants along these lines. After extensive research and forgoing the Bollywood-celeb packed Mumtaz (go to the website. it's insane), I went with the family-run Prashad Chaat House to the south of the university campus, past Bombay Stores (biggest retailer of S. Asian clothing/textiles in the UK, which is saying something), the Jami Masjid, the main Halal grocer/butcher in town and after a little while felt entirely at home in the lovely colony of south of Delhi. Except it was Bradford. So there you are.

The food, prepared by the award winning proprietress and chef, was astounding. I had a pea kachori for a starter, which turned out to be glorious pea pasteness with clove overtones shaped into a ball, wrapped in chickpea flour, and fried. Hea-ven. Everything was fabulous, and so my rec for Bradford is definitely this place. I advise walking there to get a sense of the neighbourhood.

Oh, and of course: it's Gujarati. It is a long-standing family maxim that everything good is from Gujarat and everything Gujarati is of course perfect. Prashad Chaat House now takes its place as yet another proof of this universal truth. (not that you need to prove universal truths, but there you are)

Back from the Bs

Berlin and Bradford that is. Last week Berlin, this week Bradford. Intriguingly different places, I might add.

I had not been to Berlin since July 1988, when I was young and impressionable and the city had a wall. I remember that one side was coloured and the other side was grey. One side was busy and the other side had really really wide streets with no one on them. I remember being astounded by the space of the Pergamon museum and scared when we crossed through Checkpoint Charlie, over the no-man's land and into the grey, commercial-free zone of East Berlin. People even wore grey--in my memory at least. And it was cold and rainy that July. I had packed one sweater. I wear it in every photo from the trip.

All of that has largely changed, as you might imagine. Checkpoint Charlie is a bit disneylandish now, and the strip where the wall was has been filled in with office buildingy things from the mid-90s. (I fear we will look back on mid-90s architecture with the same horror we reserve now for mid-60s architecture. I'm not saying that the latter doesn't have its charms--I secretly and truly love a lot of it (concrete is cool!)--but this 90s stuff is a bit horrifying in its, well, smugness.)

I walked everywhere, ate required sausage, took required pic of Zoo station, did Ku-damm and Mitte, ran around Tiergarten and through Brandenburg gate (not something I could have done 20 years ago, obviously--also the Starbucks right there didn't so much exist in 1988. weird.) And generally had a good time.

Thoughts: there are no cars in Berlin. Well, not where I was staying (in Mitte--center of the city). I'm not saying there are no no cars, but that usually there are bikes. and peds. and trams. and more of same, and then one car. repeat. It means the streets are quiet aside from the odd scooter, and that the cars are restricted to the major arteries. this is genius. whatever factors contribute to this state of affairs--everyone everywhere should copy them. Now. go on...

Other thought: Wales has no capitalism. There's nothing to buy here. Why would you buy things? In berlin there's everything to buy. stuff, and shoes, and clothes, and more stuff, and chocolate, and clothes, and cars, and paper, and whiskey, and absinthe, and art, and stuff. in Wales it's boot sales, grocery/farmer market food, and that's about it. so none of that communist stuff rubbed off on Berlin, but it seems that the sky, sea, food, and air is pretty much enough for those in Wales. cool.

right. why are we leaving again? oh yes. iPhone. obviously.

Meta-Blog

This blog began both as a form of travelling and as a way to negotiate our own travelling from one continent to another. Once that period of transition seemed to have come to an end, i.e. as we made a home here, I found myself slowing down in the blog department. I felt too out of context to say much about American culture and politics (after all, I now spell travelling with two 'l's). For a while I was able to comment on both British and Welsh culture as an outsider, sending missives back to the homeland. But that phase passed as I felt less like an outsider here, and the 'homeland' felt less like home. Yet (on some other hand) I didn't think I had a readership here that would want to hear my thoughts on the collapse of New Labour, the election of Boris, the role of Plaid Cymru, the promise of Compass, etc. And thus I didn't say a lot.

Now that another transition is about to start, I find myself with even less to say. I don't think I'll have any revelations about America for my American readers. Maybe I should promote the blog and widely circulate the web address to all my friends and colleagues over here - then I could tell them all about the truly insane land called America. No, if they want to know about America they can just turn on their television, open their Macbooks, pick up a newspaper. This is the other thing that's odd about living in the UK: America doesn't go away; it's hardly even distant; it's front and centre. Turn on BBC24 while eating lunch earlier this week and what do you see: breaking headlines, crane collapses in Manhattan. The US primaries have a central story on BBC and Guardian websites every single day. Hell, American culture and politics are what we UK academics write about, and then publish in Australian journals!

I suspect that my US culture shock will bring out something in me to write about. Obama is still inspiring, but I fear that putting that in to words will make it disappear. But if all else fails, I can talk about all the cool new technology I plan to buy in the states: iPhones, Plasmas, and MINIs (oh my). And if I get really desperate I'm going to turn to Philosophy: this Meillassoux guy is either a great sophist, or he's got something serious and radical to say - but I'll need help from TG on that 'transfinite' in order to understand it.

exceptionally seminal

I'm marking my last essay of the year--in the UK you don't assign anything in the middle of term, and then at the end you get an avalanche of marking. This is fine, as it means I mark nothing during the term (huzzah) in exchange for two weeks of solid marking at the end, which makes you only a wee bit crazy.

So I'm marking this essay, and it calls a certain postcolonial theorist 'exceptionally seminal'. I'm not sure what this really means, or if this is entirely appropriate. For years I've joked about the problem with the term 'seminal' as it is indeed gendered but no one seems to notice, or seemed to notice back when we cared about such things.

In response, I coined the term 'ovulal' and any day now it will enter normal discourse and it will be MY invention. MINE!! An ovulal neologism, no?

So to be exceptionally seminal, now that you know my issues with the term, would be to have what--very high motility in one's seminality? What would it mean to be exceptionally ovulal? A heightened production from the ova? Lots and lots of twins? Very very fertile, in any case. Ah fecundity.

Boot Sale Update!

Today's update (this is a 'regular feature' of the blog, if by 'regular' we mean 'twice'):

Boot sale trend today? Faux, plastic VHS tape covers that look like leatherbound books! Yes, saw these at about 6 of the vendors today. They are so unbelievably tacky that they can't even qualify as kitch. Really. Not even in your hip loft apartment. Trust me.

I managed to secure a lovely coffee server in my newly-chosen china pattern (it's not just for wedding registries anymore--you too can choose your china pattern after over 15 years with your partner!). It's called Indian tree. It is not at all Indian. This appeals to me. Plus, it's chinoiserie, my favourite word. What could be better?

My current holding in Indian Tree: four plates and the coffee server. Let the games begin!

um, it's almost June

Right. I am currently wearing wool socks (Christmassy pattern), trousers (and pants, but those are different things over here), long-sleeved shirt, and a heavy wool cardigan (think c. 1978 Patagonia and you've got it).

I'm not a huge fan of the heat, I will say. But this is a wee bit ridiculous, especially in light of last 'summer's' non-appearance. Ah well. They say we are due for 'sunny spells' on Friday. But they always say that about the weather two days ahead. Because they can.

In the meantime, check this awesome blog out, which gets it so right. so so right.

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

Am I right?

The Awakening and etc.

I have recently finished listening to the librivox version of Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899), which was good on a number of levels. I found myself a bit surprised that it hasn't yet been made into a movie (with Cate Blanchett I think as Mrs. Pontellier, even though she's too skinny for the role, and Colin Firth as Robert, obviously).

It strikes me as a needed correction to the so-called 'third wave' feminism running amok out there--the Sex in the City, I don't want it all I just want my shoes kind of feminism. I say so-called because I am offended that other, more interesting directions that feminism has taken have not become canonized in 'wave' form, like the very legitimate critiques embodied in Black feminism, 'Third World' feminism, and queer theory. But I digress. The Awakening:

In some ways pop/third wave feminism recognises what The Awakening shows us: (elite) women's lives are circumscribed by a very limited number of choices, choices that are largely about existing in relation to a man and one's children first, and then only very secondarily something else. The difference: this was much much more true in turn of the century New Orleans elite culture than it is now. And Emma's choices are as follows: society wife, outcast, or death (where 'outcast' and 'death' are basically equivalent).

But what's interesting is the way that the narrative works in The Awakening. Emma doesn't particularly like her children. She's not a 'mother' type. She finds her husband to be kind and generous, but there's not a lot of love there. She has an encounter with a man whom she loves, and who loves her. But what's genius about the book is that she realises in the end that choosing to go off with him would just be another relation of ownership--they would be unable to be in any sort of queer relation and still maintain their family/social ties. And while she can barely imagine what that relationship would look like, he can't imagine it at all.

Her choice at the end isn't about unrequited love, or the loss of Robert (her lover). It's about her awakening to the possibility of living a queer life, and her recognition of its impossibility.

The study guide websites (which I haven't read because I know they would ruin the book for me) seem to label this book as 'proto-feminism'. I find it to be about queerness.

'Emma Pontellier's awakening shows us Sedgwick's closet'. Discuss.

PS: Librivox version is fascinating--each section of about 4 chapters is read by a different woman, many of whom have lovely French or Spanish accents, in contrast to the intervening chapters with the midwestern/upstate New York rounded flatness. Fab.

progress and update

An update for those to whom we have not talked in forever and apologies and etc. If you know me at all, you know I dislike picking up the phone and thus have difficulty with ye ol' communication. So a bloggy update...

1. We are moving back to the US! Both sad and happy news, as we love it here in Wales, we have lovely friends, and a lovely house. Plus I am not excited about having to actually go to a grocery store again. (I have my priorities straight here.)
   
2. Where? Baltimore, Balmer, Bodymore Murdaland.
   
3. Yes, we have watched (since finding out about the possibility of the move) the entirety of The Wire. And we love it. And it makes us like B'more more. We are drinking Jamesons and swearing a lot in preparation.
   
4. Yes, we picked the worst time (or at least the worst thus far since the late 1970s) to sell a house. But there you are. And no, we can't rent it.
   

That's the general update. More specific updates include:

q. we ordered a Mini Cooper S yesterday--John Cooper Works, in silver. because of the near universal truth that if you are utterly stressed about selling your house what you do is to buy a car. obviously. plus, ya kinda need a car in the US I hear. I may have to drive for more than 5 minutes/week. crap. and also: silver! shiny!


2. we are auctioning our house. Yes, auctioning. Not because we are totally ebay people and must auction everything (although we are), but because the hemorrhaging money shows little sign of stopping and we are moving in July. At which point we will be paying quite a lot of money each month for a space that we no longer live in. And its value will also be going down. Fun! We are this kind of crazy people, and the market, while not DC/Baltimore bad, is bad.


ichi. we will be flying on Virgin with Luke (he will be in the hold but on the same flight). Huzzah for Virgin.


quatorze. uncharacteristically, we are flying to B'more without housing sorted on the other end. It's like grad school, only with more stuff! and a dog! fun! Friends in DC/B'More/greater MD (shout out to the Waldorf crew!) have offered to house us. Hopefully this will only be for a few weeks.


undegpunt. I am unnesting. it's a thing. and I find in the multiple moves of the last few years, it's become a natural ritual. it involves eating down whatever food we have in the cupboards. giving away things to charities. ebaying the higher-priced items. and selling books on-line. perhaps I was a nomad in a previous life. I envision this prior life as depicted in the film Gabbeh. Highly recommended.


ch. perhaps I am a nomad in this life.


zed. we are at stress level Orange regarding house sale, and largely everything else has become secondary. but hopefully this auction thing will work, and we'll be free of the house sometime in August. If it doesn't, look for the large piles of goo on the streets of B'More. That will be us.

Welsh is fun! Ydy!

Friday I spent the day in a Welsh exam--9:30 to noon written and listening comprehension, followed by a 2:20 20-minute oral exam in which I had to speak for 3 minutes and then answer questions about my monologue, answer some other questions that tested my comprehension/use of passive, conditional, and emphatic constructions, and then answer ten questions with 'yes', in Welsh. The last thing seems silly, right? But they don't really say 'yes' or 'no' directly very much in Welsh. They do the following:

Are you going to the store? I am.
Do you have children? I do.
Will he make breakfast? He will.
Should we build a hot tub? You (pl) should.
Will I be able to help you? You will be able to. (oh yes. that one's fun)

This means there are about 20 million (give or take) ways to say 'yes' and 'no' in Welsh.

Then there's the tricky ones:

It's cold today! It is.
Mae hi'n oer heddiw! Ydy.
You can see that there's not really any 'ydy' looking thing in the sentence. This is what makes Welsh 'fun' by the way. It also means that often conversations go very slowly with folks like myself:
You: It's cold today!
Me: [pause, think, pause, think] er [pause think] Ydy?

Welsh also simplifies your life by using the singular of verbs even when you're talking about multiple things. This means you don't have to really use as many verb forms, which for me is lovely. But one of the fill-in-the-blanks on the written section was:

Were the pictures good?
except in Welsh it's actually: Was the pictures good?
You'd think the answer would be: they was. But no, when you use the pronoun 'they' you must then conjugate the verb properly. So the answer is: they were.

Oedd y lluniau dda?
On.

And on. Or at least I hope it was.

Welsh is fun! Good thing I'm learning this language that will serve me so well when I move to the mid-Atlantic in a few weeks. Sigh.

hello, gorgeous!

Sorry for the radio silence. Usually this means that we are having various issues regarding life and chaos. For example, just to pick one thing, failing to sell our house. And having to drop the asking price by a 10% or so, to below what we paid for it. Or, to pick another random thing, say, having to coordinate a move across the ocean (again) for stuff, us, and dog. Fun!

So I enjoy the greeting in the top right corner of Virgin Atlantic's site: Hello Gorgeous!

Hello Virgin. I heart you. And yes, I am gorgeous. Doncha know it.

Speaking of Tornadoes

TMcD blogs about the Nashville Tornado that narrowly missed him 10 years ago. I wasn't in Nashvegas for that event, but I remember TMcD's telling of the tale from back then quite vividly. But reading that post got me thinking about my own Tornado experience, and realising that in these days of the 21st century interwebs, I could probably now look up pictures and read about an event from 20 years ago that was probably formative for me in some way. 

I now discover that today the event is called 'The Red River Valley Tornado Outbreak'. It occurred on 10 April 1979 and involved a total of 13 tornadoes. At the time, we lived in in the red river valley, very near to Wichita Falls. The 3 Tornadoes that hit Wichita falls (they came together to form one massive cell and basically marched through town), left 20,000 people homeless, injured 1,700, and killed 45 people. 10 more people were also killed by the Vernon tornado, and 3 in by the Lawton tornado. 

Online there is, of course, lots of good information, an amazing map,unbelievable pictures, entire websites devoted to the event, and even a 2005 AP article describing the impact of the inspection of the Wichita Falls ruins on future Tornado safety. 

My own memories are obviously filtered through the eyes of a 7 year old. We lived in a farmhouse at the end of a dirt road surrounded by mesquite trees and cows. Nearby was Electra, TX, current population 3,000 and couldn't have been much bigger back then. At that point in my life, then, Wichita Falls was 'the city', the place you went to buy things, the place with lots of traffic and street lights and noise and people. And this event equated in my head to the total destruction of that place. What imprinted itself in my head were NOT the pictures of the Tornadoes themselves, as I had seen lot of dark black funnel clouds in my life - dashing from the house to the cellar was a routine affair at that time. But the pictures of the devastation afterwards, of block after city block of houses simply gone aside from 1 closet or a bathroom - that was something I just couldn't grasp. And more than the pictures, I still remember all the stories that circulated afterwards: the near misses, the missing persons, the coke bottles blown through someone's leg, the 2x4 through someone's arm...

I also remember how badly the event messed up the adults. In small towns near small towns, everybody knows everybody, and therefore everybody had friends or friends of friends who were directly affected by the tornado (loss of home, loss of life, often both). I vividly recall an event some months after the 13 tornado catastrophe: as was usual for the time, my parents were at a huge party at the house of friends who also lived out in the country. A tornado came through, so we all crammed into the cellar, the bathroom, etc., and waited for it to pass. It rattled the windows and passed by without causing damage. Afterwards, there was some new girlfriend of someone at the party who was studying psychology and had learned something (a little knowledge is dangerous) about trauma and children, and therefore she wanted to 'interview me' about my feelings/emotions/thoughts about the event so that she could match up my reactions and her observations with what the textbook said. I remember being very conscious at the time of the fact that it was she who was fucked up and scared to death, and also of the fact that she couldn't see that I was a reflective conscious being in this process - that I could see what she was doing, and was not merely a passive object to be observed. I wasn't mad at her, but it made me worry that this long after the the big tornado the adults still didn't have it together.

British bureaucracy: passive to its core

'When requesting goods be ordered you should ask that your grant code be charged'.

This sentence represents the entirety of instruction given to me by a lovely woman in the finance department here at my university in the UK. Whom? Whom do I request from? Whom do I ask that? But there is no there there. There is only the bureaucracy. And, as a colonial historian, I can tell you the Brits are the world masters.

When requesting instructions be given, you should specify that your questions be answered.

I heart passive voice.

Speaking of New Music

The tenacious one, over at Ffb, very helpfully pointed me toward the new REM album (which I hadn't heard a peep about on this side of the Atlantic). Only two listens to it so far, but wow, what a revelation. One is tempted to say it sounds like 'old REM', but that's too easy, since it's also a very mature album. I'm perhaps most impressed with the lyrics. I've always loved REM - as I said in comments over there, Automatic for the People probably makes my top 10 album list - but Michael Stipe's tendency to babble has always been their weak spot for me. So I was impressed with what's going on in the words on this album. Good stuff. I'm tempted, at this early stage, to compare it to U2's ATYCLB.

But that leads me to some musical notes and recommendations of my own. First of all, when heading to Amazon to download the new REM (by the way, everyone does know that Amazon sells albums without DRM for $8.99 in 256kbps, right???? You'll find no bigger apple fanboy than I, but I haven't given the iTunes store any money, for music that is, since Amazon opened up for mp3 business) I discovered that Counting Crows has a new album, and people are daring to compare it to their debut. Only one incomplete listen for me, so I'll withhold judgement.

I can, however, judge my friends, who have about 87 gazillion times more musical talent than I. I'll start with the second album from Soul Patch, with a wonderfully meta title of Sooner or Later. It's available on iTunes, Amazon, and everywhere else, and it's a fine piece of musicianship. This album is a bit more jazz and a bit less ska than their debut release, and I like that fact quite a lot. Soul Patch identifies their own influences as Beck and Phish, but listen carefully for some wonderful 70s and 80s influences as well. To my ear Scott's lyrics and Ryan's guitar take this album up a notch, and the production values are insanely high.

Last but not least, The Calculus Affair have also released their second album. It's a thematic album and some (including me) find the thematic content a bit intimdating, but I say ignore the theme and just listen to the damn music. Bad Quarto is the second RPM challenge release from The Calculus Affair. The first, appropriately titled RPM 0207, marked a clear departure from Mariz's early work as it opened with the rocking and raucous 'Freight Train' and continued to surprise and delight with an ecclectic mix of tunes that hooked you without your seeing the hook. This album also saw moments when Mariz's lyrics got out in front of the music and made you ask for more. If I were to criticise RPM 0207, and I should note that it clearly made my top 10 of 2007, it would only be that it was a bit uneven - unsurprising for an album made in 28 days. But this is what is so impressive about the new album: it is a complete album, not just a collection of songs. It's like a book you can't put down: you put it on to give it a listen, and then next moment at which you are conscious of listening to it is when it's over. Indeed, while the previous album had clear and striking favourite songs for me (Freight Train, Alexander, Bicycle Down the Hill, Man Who used to Hunt), I can't really name any individual songs on this album - I just love the whole album. And the days of the haunting and often transcendent, but still, I'd say, rather tentative lyrics of Mariz's debut If you Lived here..., those days are over. This is a confident and mature work that shows a wide range of style and ability. Oh, and did I mention that it's free: get it here.

Further on Tibet

OpenDemocracy has some interesting articles on Tibet/China, and they are reposting or linking to older commentaries as well.

One on the Chinese blogosphere/internet reaction to the protests in Tibet - here

Discussion of the grievances and the mistakes both sides have made - here

And a piece from 2006 interviewing the Spanish lawyer and one of the Tibetan witnesses in an on-going trial of several Chinese leaders for human rights abuses - here.

This last interests me in particular because it is interspersed with art from an exhibition that included a wide range of Tibetan and western artists. I saw a presentation of some of this work at a conference a few years back, and what the images don't tell you (simply used here as illustration rather than being read in the interview in any way) is that often galleries in Lhasa exhibit Tibetan contemporary art without discrimination as to the culture or ethnicity of the artist. If you're in Tibet or interested in its particular issues--political or not--you can participate in the art scene. The presenter suggested that there were bridges being built within the art community that undermined the identity politics of 'Tibetan' and 'Han Chinese'. Some cause for hope, perhaps.

The image I've included here is fascinating because it's about Tibet and globalization--not specifically aimed at China. Each object in the Buddha form is provided in great detail in the work, so you can see little contemporary Japanese toys and other bits of capitalist detrius from around the world. Good stuff. For more on Gyatso and Tibetan art, see: Harris, Clare. In the Image of Tibet: Tibetan Painting After 1959. London: Reaktion, 1999. Link.

Lost Horizon by James Hilton

At lunch today we caught coverage of the torch being carried through London. One of the Save Tibet protesters had attempted to grab the torch from a woman who used to present on Blue Peter--one of the best known kids' shows in Britain. Later someone from the protest group tried to put out the torch with a fire extinguisher. Both plots failed, protest went on peacefully, and torch progressed through the streets of Llundain without too much more ado. We watched as Gordon Brown greeted the torch (but importantly did not touch or hold it) in front of 10 Downing Street as it was transferred from to a man in a wheelchair; we watched as protesters were arrested in proximity of the torch in Trafalgar Square.

And the discussion in the house here on hollywood road was about Tibet. and the protests. and symbolism and politics, and what, exactly, the Free Tibet phenomenon was about.

This morning I finished reading Lost Horizon, published in 1933 and made into a film in 1937. It made popular and ubiquitous the term 'Shangri-la', which it (naturally) stole from Chinese narrative history. [interesting side note: Camp David was initially named Shangri-la by Roosevelt in 1942, such was the influence of this book and film. Eisenhower renamed the place after his son. Shangri-la is so much better, yes?] It is also the source of a lot of our ideas about Tibet.

One of the things we discussed over lunch was the incongruity between the 'Free Tibet' argument—which seems to be rooted in an argument for the sovereignty of Tibet as a nation grounded in some sort of adherence to an ethnic/linguistic/cultural essence—and a 'China should clean up its human rights' argument—which seems to start from an assumption that Tibet is part of China, and therefore the Chinese should clean up their human rights record there. And everywhere. I think that the alliance/elision between these two arguments is part of the fluidity of protest movements that often need to ally with groups not always in agreement with the motivating issue for others. But the unproblematic acceptance of the idea that one can put Free Tibet and human rights abuses in the same basket of protest, go down to Bloomsbury Square, and protest the torch being paraded through London (itself several steps removed from the Chinese government: London--relay--torch--Olympics--Beijing--China) seems a bit incongruous. Or at least ripe for unpacking. Toss in the guy who commandeered the BBC camera for 5 seconds to say something (he was cut off) about Cyprus, and you're off to the races.

And then we discussed the 'why Tibet' argument: why Tibet and not the Uyghurs in Xinxiang or the Naxi in Yunnan/Sichuan? Why Tibet and not the Chechens or the Basques? And this brings me back to Lost Horizon. Because the book is indeed the answer to 'why Tibet' in some ways. While Tibet romanticisations preceeded this text (it is built on them), it popularised an equation between not just hidden paradises and Tibet, but spiritual retreats of wisdom where westerners can find their humanity and Tibet.

In 1959 the Dalai Lama ran from Tibet into exile in India with many of his followers. The timing could not have been better--the Beat movement had peaked and was still active, the 'free love' sixties were on the horizon, and Asia rose as a place of spiritual haven, ganja, and finding oneself. Add in a downtrodden Buddhist leader (actually a Buddha) and you've got a cause behind which well-meaning Westerners can throw their support. They are exiled, but they're peaceful (Buddhists) and intellectual (monks) and they're from paradise (Lost Horizon)! We must save them. And suddenly we're back, not in Orientalism (which we are in of course) but in colonialism: the drive to save the east from itself.

I find the cultural genocide happening in Tibet (and other places listed above) to be horrifying and in need of some solution. I'm not sure divvying up territory along constructed ethnic/linguistic/cultural/religious lines is the answer, as history has on several occasions shown that path to be not so great in terms of lives lost and torn apart. And I know that activists rarely are able to articulate their causes (even to themselves) in coherent ways that take on board critical analyses of the international system as it stands now. So I agree that something needs to be done to deal with China's imperialism and imposition of a uniform culture on various parts (all?) of its sovereignty. And China is not alone in this. But perhaps figuring out how to live productively and politically in a multiethnic, multicultural world would be a better path? I know. crazy pie in the sky leftie thinking.

Oh, and you should read Lost Horizon. Because like all good Orientalist books, it provides an excellent picture of British and American culture and worries in the 1930s. It's quite funny ('Americans, Conway reflected, had the knack of being able to say patronising things without being offensive'. 27). Its core philosophy involves slowing down, embracing your inner lazy, and resignifying 'slacker' as a positive descriptor. And guess what. Shangri-la is multicultural. They've got folks from all over living there, in harmony, under the leadership of a lama who is not Tibetan. The world, after WWI, is going to pieces, just like Conway, the protagonist. Will he find his Shangri-la in the valley of the Blue Moon?

3 papers in March

Crazy crazy crazy. Three crazies. I'm a bit tired, I must admit, after all of the paper giving in March, somewhat accidental: I transformed from roundtable participant to paper giver in one panel and then from chair/organiser into paper giver in another. No excuse, though. Too many papers in March. And of course (of course!) on three different topics. 19th c. painting, contemporary film, and mid-20th c. architecture. But it's all good. Met some interesting people and got thinking on some new paths. But I still wonder how 'real people' seem to do this sort of thing all of the time without utter exhaustion. I suppose that's why they also drink RedBull and smoke like chimneys. Ah those real people.

But: two chapters in February, 3 papers in March--now it's on to 4 somethings in April--four relaxing day-trips? Four spa days? Ah yes. Frozen Four. What was I thinking? Sadly the Gophers are not in it this year, but some great teams are. If you are in Denver (and some of you indeed might be), you should check it out. I bet tickets outside the arena at gametime will be cheap and plentiful. Plus, college hockey rocks.

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

This is a librivox recording. All librivox recordings are in the public domain. This reading by Stewart Wills. Lord Jim, by Joseph Conrad. Chapters 34 and 35.

The envelope text for each mp3 file, chapter by chapter, all 45 of them, all 14 and a half hours of them. The entire thing is read by Wills, who, over the course of those 14 hours, becomes a meta-Marlow, narrating the internally narrated tale for you (or me, in this case), seemingly in the middle of my head as I, appropriately, row down the imaginary river.

Wills' reading was amazing. I will report on other readers and whether they are as good/professional/engaging, but having just finished Persuasion read by a professional actress, this was equally good. He didn't try too much for accents, but instead provided a change in the quality of his voice for certain characters, with a bit of accent thrown in--the key was that he was consistent: you knew you were hearing the German captain of the Patna, the Australian ne'er-do-well, the Malay deck hand. The book relates the story of Jim through the voice of Marlow, so we have multiple narrators: Conrad, describing Marlow's narration, Marlow, narrating the story of Jim to various audiences, and Jim, usually in conversation with Marlow. Wills changed his tone for each narrator such that the transition was seamless. He became the meta-Marlow.

Book-wise, I can recommend Lord Jim: it's a fascinating insight into the small world that was seafaring around the Indian Ocean in the late 19th century. It's got a heart-of-darkness theme (remember how we all only really have one idea and we repeat it--that's definitely true here, although it's repeated in an entertaining and fascinating way). It also talks about people falling into the 'one of us' category: Marlow helps Jim throughout the novel, but feels torn about it. He falls back on the 'he's (obviously) one of us' framework to justify it, which calls into question those who are not of 'us' and why they are not. It's about class primarily, but it's also about the fact that no matter how much Jim separates himself from his own past (class, family, actions), for Marlow he is always 'one of us' and will never shake that.

The novel does suffer occasionally from a feeling that Conrad was getting paid by the word and, well, needed to stretch things out a bit. But those passages also feel like short stories along the way in a larger narrative about the Indian Ocean, and so it maintains its entertaining edge even when the larger story isn't carried forward for a few chapters. The book also, like much Conrad, provides a counter-narrative to the imperialist understanding of colonialism: here we are on the ground with the unworthy and disorganised coloniser, seeing the scrabbling for just a bit more money, a bit more adventure, a bit more profit. And the successful ones (like Marlow) are those who are, frankly, a bit bored by it all, who remain aloof, not reaching for adventure but treating the world like the world. Of course, the world is one in which Europeans who are of the 'us' enjoy privilege of connection and birth. But Conrad lets you see that about Marlow too, and thereby provides a critical edge to his narrative about the seas. Recommended for rowers, those intrigued by port culture, colonialism, heroism, honesty, and butterflies.

something from nothing. or the other way around.

Easter: big day. day of disappearances, resurrections, caves left empty.

creation is the other way around, although there is some resurrection in creation--rewriting in writing. I sent off two chapters of a 'book' this week to a publisher for review. in rewriting and rethinking the words in the chapters it struck me--and struck me hard--that this was simply words. flimsy words, put up as some frail representation of ideas, ideas that don't really exist, or certainly didn't before the words. and then the words go together, and they form this thing called 'book'. but the weird thing is this: 'book' seems solid. it seems real. it seems whole and good and you put it in italics in a bibliography entry. words are thin little things. tiny. insignificant. and once, not too long ago, there weren't any of them. and yet we depend on them quite a lot. a lot a lot.

I am sure I'm not being clear. here it is: emptiness....words....book. but the book is really just emptiness. much like the cave. strange. and awesome.

or: tidy.

the dog knows a coda

Whilst at a supper dance at the golf club on Dewi Sant day (St. David's, 1 March), we sat next to a lovely couple who, it turned out, were fanatical dog people. In the sense that they love dogs and, finding us of like mind, regaled us with stories of past dogs (she was a good one, that) and present dogs (so I had to adopt him, mind--you understand! what could I do!). One of their dogs-of-yore was a collie who, according to the gentleman in question, could count. He taught her to count painstakingly with 'chocolate buttons', and eventually the dog could count to 10 with barks. How many fingers, pooch? 'bark bark bark' good girl!

I believe this to be entirely true. Dogs are smart (some of them) and can learn, particularly when there is chocolate involved. (Oddly like humans in that way, if I recall the persuasive graham cracker and chocolate milk combo of kindergarten days.) And so we reflected: could we teach our dog to count? Probably, but did we have the patience? No.

But we will say that our dog can do it one better: he understands the narrative structure of the television drama (and by extension, most dramatic forms). Specifically, he knows his codas. DS9, for all of its genius, follows the normal pattern of intro, [opening credits] three acts, and a coda with some regularity. And usually, after we are done watching said programme in the evening, we let Luke out for a final trip to the loo and then go to bed. After assiduous training through seven seasons of DS9, Luke can now anticipate this. He'll be dead asleep (for those who know, this is the upside-down, neck curled back, forearm in the air, chasing the squirrel type asleep) and we won't move or say anything, but something in the narrative arc of the show will change. A completion of the story's main narrative, followed by a palpable shift in the music, or the tone of the dialogue, or the sound of 'space'. Who knows--Luke can sense it. At the start of the coda, he wakes from sleep, stretches, and walks to the back door. We sometimes have to tell him to wait if the coda goes on for more than the usual minute or so, or if there are two codas (rare, but it happens).

Nothing like having a dog with an intimate understanding of narrative structure.

We believe that he will now shift to train his ear/body for the bass notes of the Wire's closing credits. Or our utterances of 'damn' at the end of each episode. One of the two. Not that we're creatures of habit at all. Not us.

Speaking of Television and Colonialism

Every one of should definitely check out the latest issue of Slayage: The International Journal of Buffy Studies. There is always some top quality stuff in Slayage, but for my money, this issue on Firefly/Serenity hold a particular gem.

Go take a look.

A vote for Hillary is a vote for Kai Winn

Folks, it's time to watch DS9 again. If you haven't seen it since it aired, obviously, it's way past time. And I'm not talking a few eps here and there. I'm talking the entire 7-season run. Because we learn a lot about power, colonialism, imperialism, resistance, and--perhaps most intriguing of them all--terrorism. DS9 was criticised by trekkies when it aired because it dared to set the entire show on a relatively stationary space station rather than a ship that zoomed around the galaxy. But this very fact allowed it to explore the aftermath of colonialism (and the repercussions of resistance movements), the role of religion in politics, and the valorisation of terrorist tactics--without ever losing sight of the human costs that come with torture, killing civilians, and sleeping with the enemy.

Kira Narys' character serves as a tactical adviser throughout the show--precisely because she has experience working within a resistance/terrorist-type organisation, one organised into autonomous cells and fighting with guerilla tactics, often taking civilians down with the rest. 'Collaboration', a theme examined to great effect on Battlestar as well, is sometimes articulated in the 'if you're not with us...' formulation, but is usually then explored to greater subtlety with the characters involved, specifically Kira's partner in the final season, Odo, who worked for the Cardassians during the occupation. Terrorism, and being a terrorist, and what it means to be a 'good' terrorist (including a great episode where Kira berates her Cardassian nemesis Ducat for not being a good terrorist) are themes that run throughout the series. I don't think these lines could even be thought today, nor put into the mouths of the characters who are consistently placed within the camp of 'the good guys' and certainly always in the camp of the 'us'.

Power plays complex and interesting roles within the series: the problems with seeking it, its relation to transcendent identities or god-like status, its repercussions once you have lost control, the power gained in giving up one's body/life to a cause, the assimilatory power of neo-liberalism. And so my title for this post. Kai Winn, the 'kai' or religious leader of Bajor, is consumed by her drive to have the love, loyalty, and respect of the Bajorans. But Capt. Sisko's anointing as 'the emissary' has thwarted her, and despite devoting her whole life to the religion, she has not been spoken to by the prophets, whereas many others have (Kira was even possessed by one of them, in addition to seeing them; Sisko sees them all the time it seems). She is a complex character: one who wants desperately to be a part of the prophet-seeing club, one who believes in the prophets, but one who, all along, does not really have faith. She is also politically savvy--throughout the series she often gets Sisko and others to do what she wants through maneuvering, and while on the one hand she truly truly desperately wants to have faith, that very desire preempts her ability to indeed put her faith in the prophets. Kai Winn's character demonstrates how desire cannot produce visions, and how desire in fact bars us from being able to speak to the prophets--those who can guide us on our path. Sisko does not desire and indeed tries to reject his role as the chosen one, the emissary, but in a few seasons he has embraced the role, and begun to have faith, even to the extent of ignoring his duties to (the almighty) Starfleet because of that faith. Kai Wynn, when presented with the option of stepping down as Kai in order to follow 'the path that the prophets have laid out' rejects this option in favour of, in the end, following the pah wraiths (the prophets' godly enemies) so as to secure her power.

I have not exhausted the complexities of Kai Winn's character--and this is no simple analogy I propose. This is why it's time to watch DS9 again. Because its complexity helps us to understand the problems we face right now, and the show reveals to us how limited we have become in the range of questions and answers we can voice today.

Book update: N. Ireland, gender, and persuasion

I haven't done the book-a-week thus far; my February writing got in the way a bit, but I'm close. So an update on some of the books I've finished over the past few weeks.

Persuasion, Jane Austen, on the ipod (audible)
I can recommend 'reading' the 'classics' such as this one on audiobook. Rather than a daunting, thick tome, you're faced with a file that has a delimited time (8 hours in this case). Plus, for books like those of the Austen variety, it's nice to rely on an actor to interpret the tone of various banal statements such that you easily and seamlessly understand snootiness, sarcasm, 'well I declare' naivete, and gruff embarrassment. Persuasion itself is an interesting book in terms of its depiction of the tiny spaces women have to maneuver within, whether they are persuaders or persuadees. It is a book about how to convince others and oneself of the proper path to take through sometimes treacherous social interrelations. On one level it's about relations among women, whether an aunt-like mentor, an older confidante, a sister, a cousin, or a rival. And it's about the emotional and physical harm done in the minutiae of social interactions. I find it very much like the original psychological novel: The Tale of Genji. Everything happens with one phrase, one note, one letter. Lives are saved or shattered on the backs of these tiny turns. I recommend reading it on audio book--it makes these nuances easier to absorb.

Northern Ireland: A Very Short Introduction, Marc Mulholland, OUP, in the loo
This book was demoted (promoted?) from 'plane reading' to 'loo reading' and as a result I actually got through the thing. 150 pages of utter lack of persuasion, wrapped up in terrible writing and capped by the assumption that the reader already knows everything about northern Ireland. Which is unfortunate for a book with its subtitle. The author takes no clear path through the confusing material, instead assuming we're following him: mentioning Stormont several pages before he actually explains what it is, casually noting the killing of 10 people on a bus on one page and then three pages later labelling it a 'massacre', failing utterly to define terms or provide necessary background for understanding party affiliations. I realise these little books are often tossed together in a week or two. And perhaps they should merely remain what the marketing seems to wish for them: books you buy as gifts at the checkout with no expectation the recipient will read them. If you would like to understand the northern Ireland conflict, do not read this book. It did, however, make me feel better about my own writing ability. Read it if you need that kind of contrast.

Written on the Body, Jeannette Winterson, on the sofa (link)
Omigod is this book soooo 1992. In a good way. But it made me realise how literature comes out of a particular context, and that by 'particular' we mean 'the 23rd week of 1992'. This is my first Winterson, and may be my last; I find it a bit too clever in the lack of gendered identification of the narrator, which is intellectually interesting but I'm not sure how much it adds to the overarching point of the narrative. That is, interesting trick, but what does it bring to the story? I enjoy the anti-cliche attitude of the text, and the writing is compelling, evocative and expressive. But I wasn't sure I liked being in the head of the narrator, not because of the a-gendered quality of the narration but because I wanted different perspectives. In that sense, the book succeeds in producing a feeling of being inside a body and wanting out, or wanting to connect--the interiority of the narration produces that extremely well. But I was reminded of heady days in grad school reading Butler and out-there lesbian/transgender literature, and it made me crave the coffee and whole-grain vegan cookies at Dunn Brothers across from Macalester. Perhaps not the kind of craving Winterson was going for!

Other books read recently:
Anthony Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations
Christopher Pinney, Camera Indica
Lisa Trivedi, Clothing Gandhi's Nation
Rabindranath Tagore, Fireflies

my secret weapon

Really it's not me writing all those words. Luke is not only an excellent writer, but as you can tell, clearly enjoys his work. All he needs is a cuppa and he's good to go.

I'm sure someone else notices this....

Just last night we watched the pre-primary Daily Show in which he interviews Hilary (one day delay for US to UK, a second day for it being DVR'ed). I didn't take notice at first, so my tally only includes the last 2/3 of the interview, but in that very brief time HRC said 'you know' at least 18 times. Seriously. 18 times.

Does this not bother anyone else but me?

Honestly, I think I'd rather listen to GWB speak. Yes, he mangles the English language some times, but I swear he beats Hilary handily when it comes to dead-air-filling verbal ticks.

Oh, and one other thing: can Hilary not see the performative contradiction involved in giving a speech about the the hollowness of speeches?